Day 24: Soaking up the Sun

Day 24: April 19, 2020
Global cases: 2,406,575; Deaths: 165,031
Egypt cases: 3,144; Deaths: 239

Nadine Abdel Razek
Psychology senior – Theater minor

Today I got up and had my breakfast, and watched an episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend which I’ve been binge watching on Netflix. Later on I had some tea in the garden, soaking up some spring/summer sun – I don’t even know what season it is.

This is definitely my most enjoyable time of the day, and I make a point to sit in the sun every morning cause it makes me feel a bit more alive during these weird times. I then tried to do some work, although it’s really much easier to just sit around watching the rest of my TV show all day.

It’s strange because you’d think in a time like this you’d be so bored and desperate to have something to do, that doing your assignments and studying would be a lot easier than before, but somehow the day is way shorter than it should be, and it’s actually really hard to stay motivated.

I went for my daily evening walk with my mum, which again makes me feel more like a normal human. I’ve never felt so blessed to have a little garden in my area that I can walk around in, which I had never even been to before this corona thing started.

I think I can safely say that a lot of people are being way more affected than me on a general level, but with me I get sudden periods of sadness and despair, where I think “when the hell is this going to end, I miss everyone.”

It’s a weird time and my main concern is whether or not I’ll be able to go to England this summer, something that my family does every year. I don’t know what I’d do if I’m not able to go honestly, it’s always the highlight of my year and it is my second home.

It’s also where all my family reunite every summer so that’d mean me not seeing them this year, which would be really upsetting.

I’ve felt okay today, I haven’t really had a sad spell which is good. I also haven’t eaten too much which is really hard to do! I feel like I’m hungry all the time nowadays.

For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.

I’m glad I haven’t felt down because it seems to hit like a truck, it’s full on and really sudden, and it can even feel like the end of the world. I actually felt like that yesterday, when my mum told me that people in China were getting re-infected with the virus, and I felt this really bad anxiety and loss of hope.

I started imagining that this just wouldn’t end any time soon, not before a year or something, which I just don’t know if I could handle. I’m definitely an extrovert and usually hate staying home, so this has all been a very drastic change of pace for me.

As I’m very active in theatre, it’s also been hard to have the scenes I was working on get cancelled, and to not be able to see the production of 12 Angry Jurors which a lot of my friends were working on.

I am very passionate about acting so it’s hard for me to have to put that on hold. On the other hand, I feel very thankful that the production of Noura, which I was acting in, was done with before this whole thing and wasn’t affected by it.

I guess in a way it’s also felt kind of relaxing, things are at a slower pace and I thankfully haven’t had to deal with mean professors, which is definitely a plus.

I hope I can keep up my routines of sitting outside every morning and going for walks, as they’ve definitely kept me feeling sane.